hoare, a former "news of the world" reporter who'd been an early whistleblower in the scandal. hoare was found dead monday at his home north of london. more now on today's hearings and the murdoch media empire. we're joined, from london, by john burns of "the new york times," and from new york, by david folkenflik, who covers the media for npr. so, john burns, what struck you most about the murdoch's message today? >> well, it was a heavily lawyered performance but for all that i thought it was pretty skilled. the lawmakers who were a lot more brief, better briefed themselves than the parliamentary committees in london and britain usually are, they are not... they are a shadow of their counterparts on capitol hill but today i thought that the lawmakers did pretty well but they didn't lay too many gloves on the murdochs. i think that it was greatly to their advantage in a paradoxical way that mr. marbles, i think his name is, entered from stage right with his custard pie or his shaving foam pie, whatever it was because it presented rupert murdoch who is not altogether the easies